Feijóo taps pro-Israel lawmaker as Madrid No. 2
Spain heads to the polls next month, and the frontrunner for prime minister has made a pick that will be welcomed in Jerusalem. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the center-right Popular Party (PP), has chosen Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo as his number two on the party’s Madrid list for the general election on November 29.
Álvarez de Toledo is widely regarded as the most pro-Israel member of the Spanish parliament. Throughout the term of Sánchez’s outgoing Socialist government, she opposed every move Madrid made against Israel, from the recognition of a ‘Palestinian’ state to the government’s formal accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Feijóo had been dropping hints for days. In a radio interview this week he described his future running mate as a lawmaker who had voted against the amnesty law and demanded answers from the head of Spain’s intelligence service, references that pointed squarely at Álvarez de Toledo. Sánchez has named Defense Minister Margarita Robles as his own number two in Madrid.
“The sensitivity of a pumice stone”
Her positions on Israel were on full display on October 7, 2025, when she rose in parliament to respond to a government decree that labeled Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide. The timing, she said, could not have been worse.
“On the anniversary of the largest massacre of Jews since the Nazi genocide, they bring a decree calling Israel genocidal,” she told the chamber. “You must have the sensitivity of a pumice stone. Or worse, an intention to confuse or erase the real reason the bloody war in Gaza broke out.”
She followed with a rhetorical question aimed at the gap between Israel’s conduct toward Gaza’s population and the charge leveled by the Spanish left. “Can you imagine a plan drawn up by Hitler to free the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto? I can’t.”
In the same speech, she called the recognition of a ‘Palestinian’ state at this moment “a prize for terror.” Álvarez de Toledo has argued that Sánchez seized on the Palestinian issue for domestic political gain, using it to divert attention from corruption allegations surrounding him and his inner circle.
Her elevation places one of Israel’s most outspoken defenders in Europe close to the top of the party currently favored to form Spain’s next government.